(Baila’s POV)
*Yawwwn*
Ah that was a nice rest
…
..
.
Oh god!
I jump out my bed grabbing my phone from the counter.
It’s midday!
I quickly grab my cute bunnies that are just waking up from their lazy sleep, and take them outside.
Watching them do their business…I tap my foot slightly in annoyance.
How did I oversleep?!
I quickly rush my cuties inside and after giving them a little cuddle; I grab myself a quick ready meal for lunch, sweet and sour, ugh.
Quick shower? Nah, don’t need it.
I let my cuties hop in the house while I go back to my room and jump back into ARIA.
*Whoosh*
“HEY CAN I HAVE BLUE?”
“WOLFY HAS BLUE”
“NEED SOME LEATHER OVER HERE”
“BRACERS OVER HERE”
“STOP CUTTING THE LINE”
“GUYS I NEED ANOTHER LEATHER”
“MORE LEATHER”
“WE’RE RUNNING OUT OF PINK”
“HOW THE HELL ARE WE RUNNING OUT OF PINK?”
“YOU LOT, GO GRAB SOME MORE INGREDIENTS”
“SHIPMENT OF NARCOTINE OVER HERE”
“GIVE TO JOAT NOW!”
…
..
.
Just what in the name of Aiag is happening?
…
…
-A short while earlier-
(Joat's POV)
“GIVE IT TO JOAT NOW!” I scream towards the incoming dog-beastman with floopy brown ears.
He rushes towards me and and quickly trades me the berries.
“SQUIRREL, HOW WE DOING?” Having to shout over the bustling crowd of people talking in unison and chatting amongst themselves is quite the pain…but when you have close to 100 people in the square…not much can be done about that.
“ON SCHEDULE; 28 SETS MADE. AND I’M TIKARI!!”
“JUST GET BACK TO WORK”
“WILL DO BOSS”
She continues to oversee everything. Man, lucky she offered to take the job of overseeing things, because I sure as hell am not going to do that job.
“JOAT”
I whip around to see who’s called my name.
“DILLYDALLY, PERFECT!” I was getting bored doing nothing here. We’ve been at it for 5 hours now…and I haven’t many useful things yet.
I motion for DillyDally to come over.
“SQUIRREL, HEAD ROUND”
“TIKARI! YOU HEARD THE BOSS, HEAD ROUND”
Everyone immediately slices off the heads off their pelts and runs them up to me…Well I only needed 3…
Guess this is all I need for everyone.
I look to Thrash, who’s working the chest piece, and steal one off him much to his clients annoyance.
“WARN ME?” He asks
“NO TIME”
I quickly reshape the chest piece to fit DillyDally and then stitch a wolf head on either shoulder.
The finishing touch is placing a wolf head on his head and voila, he’s Division leader material.
“NOW MOVE TO ANOTHER LINE TO GET YOUR OTHER EQUIPMENT”
“WILL DO”
He rushes off to join another line.
And that’s 1 person done on my end…Being the guy who makes the stuff for leaders is quite a boring job…
I turn to watch my line of workers; Thrash, Bottom, Lancel, Ravena and Reddwarf, all sitting in a line creating armor for the masses.
Thrash is working chestpieces, Bottom the armguards and Lancel, the helmet. Ravena is working boots while Reddwarf is working the shorts.
Everyone is getting shorts, because that way I don’t look out of place (plus it uses less leather).
Everyone gets a single layer of shirt, shorts, boots, arm guards and helmet. The leaders get wolf head decorations.
“BOSS, RAVENA’S GONE”
“DAMN, SEND HER LINE TO ME”
That’s the 4th time this hour. I’m lucky that the ratio of girls to guys is around 30:70.
I spot Ravena rushing inside Jenna’s, taking a cute dog-beastlady with floppy ears with her.
Luckily(?) most girls have some modesty so when they’re doing shorts or chestpieces, Ravena has to sort them out inside.
The large queue of about 30 people rush up to me and I’m face to face with the Red Slime
“GIVE ME YOUR FEET”
He stands on my workbench and I get working.
Making some staple boots with thick soles, I’m done in 8 minutes.
Aagh, another person. Why do I have to work? I wish there was someone else who cou-
“TIKARI GRAB REDHEAD RABBIT, SHE’S A LEATHERWORKER. SET HER TO BOOT WORK”
“YES BOSS” she seems happy I called her name, it’s important, I’m doing work and I want to stop.
I turn back to my customer; a pink pig-beastman
“YOU, FOLLOW RED-RABBIT, SHE’LL DO YOUR BOOTS. AND THAT GOES FOR THE REST OF YOU”
I see Baila get picked up and quickly dragged over to Ravena’s workbench. My crowd rushes over to her…leaving me feeling both happy and empty for some reason.
I open up my chat
Ravena, you’ve got girl duty, Baila’s here and she’s taken over
Ok send them up
“SQUIRREL, RAVENA’S WORKING GIRLS”
“OK BOSS. LISTEN UP EVERYBODY! GIRLS WHO NEED SHORTS OR CHESTPIECES LINE UP AT JENNA’S. FISH SISTERS, YOUR LEATHER GOES TO JENNA’S”
I’m so lucky that I have someone like her working with me. And god, she doesn't even have commanding shout yet...
She became the ‘director’ of the operation soon after we started, simply because she can shout LOUD. And she’s got pretty good directive skills.
I have a right hand man, and I found my left hand woman.
“BOSS, BLACK IS LOW”
“ON IT”
I stand up and walk over to the opposite side of the square.
Only about 40 people are around here dunking their new pieces of leather in their desired coloured water.
I saw that pretty much everyone would get one piece done and then colour it before lining up for their next piece.
And it looks like people read my sign too!
I look at my large sign that I made, with the help of the Village Elder (he provided the utensils to write and the ‘paper’).
RULES OF COLOURING:
1. ONLY HAVE A MAXIMUM OF 3 COLOURS IN YOUR SET OF CLOTHING
2. DON’T MIX WATERS
Nice and simple but I had to prop that up after some idiot, still haven’t found out who, decided to try make a rainbow coloured chestpiece…Result was, I had to wash about 30 basins out and recolour them…what a pain.
Took me a whole 3 hours to make all 72 ‘base’ colours and one idiot had me redo another 30…I’m amazed we’re still on track because Ravena had to go on girl duty and no one could do boots.
She must’ve worked like a hurricane when she went back to boot duty.
Anyways, I quickly spot the black water basin…someone’s spilt it
“DOES THIS LOOK GOOD ON ME”
“HAHA! YOU LOOK LIKE SOME OFF SUPERHERO”
“PERFECT”
A Canary-beastman is showing off to a tiger-beastman…even here, everyone is talking and thus shouting over the mass of talking.
I’m going to go deaf soon, if I’m not already.
The canary-beastman is wearing a black chestpiece and shorts…still wet.
“YOU! DID YOU KNOCK THE BASIN”
“WHA-OH…SORRY BUT I TRIPPED ON IT”
His right leg is slightly black…so he’s not lying.
“NO PROBLEM, JUST BE A BIT MORE CAREFUL”
“WILL DO” they duo run off back to a queue.
Taking the spilt basin to the well, I quickly fill it up; crush some Narcotine in them and that’s black back in action.
Ok, now what to do…now that Baila’s taking my work, haha!
…
…
(Baila’s POV)
THAT BASTARD!
Unbeleviable…absolutely unbeleviable!
First he completely ignores me for 10 mintues…10 MINUTES! And then he conscripts me to make shoes…SHOES! I HATE SHOES!
Hell, he doesn’t even conscript me himself! HE MAKES A STRANGER DO IT FOR HIM!!
AAAAAGH!
I can’t wait to get my spear from all this work and then I’ll ram it up his a-
“OWOWOW MISS CAN YOU STOP STABBING MY WITH THE NEEDLE PLEASE”
“SORRY, WAS LOST IN MY OWN THOUGHTS”
“JUST DON’T GET LOST IN THEM WHILE SOWING MY SHOES PLEASE”
The person who is shouting at me, whom I barely just hear, is a large grey rhinocerous-beastman.
Lucky his hide is tough but it apparently wasn’t tough enough as I see small wellings of blood on his feet.
Whoops!
I just really want to kill Joat right now! Even if he’s a ‘division leader’ and basically giving people free weapons and armor…I still want to make him pay for all the evil he’s done for me.
Soon, very soon I will have my revenge.
…
…
(Joat’s POV)
“BRAXEL, YOU LOOK AWESOME” I shout towards him
“YES” He swishes his new cloak, much to the appreciation of the crowd.
The cloak I made him is just a simple fur cloak(made of leather so it's a bit more stiff than you'd think), but since it’s the only cloak in the village right now…it’s pretty special.
He’s also got the wolf heads on the shoulder and head for sake of distinguishment.
Whoo, with Braxel done that’s my work finished.
And now…I’ve got nothing to do for a hell of a long time
“SQUIRREL, HOW MANY SETS WE MADE?”
“52 BOSS. IF WE KEEP THIS UP WE SHOULD BE DONE IN 9 HOURS”
…
..
.
A hell of a long time it indeed is…
52 sets have been made, but no one is fully equipped yet; most people have 2 pieces while most of Ravena’s girls have 3 pieces. The leaders have 4.
Hmm, should I pick my team leaders?
Right now…I’ve got Thrash for Vanguard. Squirrel and Zzoid will be ‘advisors’ so they’ll be separate from the other groups…hmm, I need to find 3 more team leaders…or do I get the parties to choose themselves?
Getting others to pick might be easier.
Ok, that will be sorted soon…
“TIKARI”
“BOSS” She shouts at me with new enthusiasm…she definitely prefers it when I call her by her name
“GET EVERYONE TO SHUT UP”
“OK…QUIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEET”
...
..
.
That worked just fine…god she’s got a loud voice.
I run up the tavern steps, getting everyone in view
“OK everybody, we’re going to change around how things work. First, everyone who has 4 pieces of armor, you get priority. Then those with 3 and lastly those with 2. Therefore, everyone with 2 pieces of armor; you have 2 jobs”
“Ok…and what are these jobs?” Honey asks
“The first one is to go hunting and woodcutting to have enough food, leather and fire for some days. The second, is to help level up those who are still level 3. If no one in your party is level 3, grab someone who is”
“Levels don’t make a difference; they’ll just add 5 stat points which aren’t really used for much” A pig says as he snorts
Most people shake their heads at him saying things such as “moron” or “noob”…Well he does seem like one it seems.
“5 stat points will make all the difference. Anyways, do those tasks, as well as skin more pelts in case we need to repair the armor…I will send a message when you are free to be given new armor.”
“OK” Everyone shouts and then head off to do what they need to do.
Only around 20 people leave…wow we had a lot more people with 3 armor pieces than I thought…
They all line up and the lines look a lot less menacing now…
What to do, what to do…
…
…
(Anoobis’ POV)
I…am a genius.
Hehe, haha, HAHAHA!!!
Now, time to show all these moronic people the genius that is I…
…
…
(Joat’s POV)
“Dinner break Boss…Boss…can you make me those too?”
“Squirrel, I’ll make you a special pair later ok”
“OK, thank you!”
“No problem, you earned it”
…
..
.
I’m not sure whether that was the right line to use…
Anyways, finally time to eat!
These past hours have been quite difficult for me.
I go outside and sit in the decently large circle of people.
All 28 of us are worked to the bone.
7 of us make armor, 1 ordered everything and the other 20 tanned for most of the time.
We did exchange them here and there so that they could get some armor too in these past 14 hours…jesus has it been that long? But the original 20, which are these lot, did most of the work...and they’re still at it.
Squirrel sits by me and rest her head on my shoulder looking way out of it…well she has been shouting for ages…I’m amazed she can still speak.
I’m ignoring the glances of anger from Baila and the wiggling eyebrows from the rest…
“Cheers!” we all raise cups of water, where from I don’t know, and gulp it down happily
“So, Squirrel, how many have we done?” I ask, to give the others some idea of where the light at the end of this tunnel is
“Boss, let me sleep will you. You’ve been working me hard all day” She opens her little drooped eyes and gives me a tired look. Wow he small whiskers on her face actually suit her.
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“Right, right, sorry. Just this little question”
“Boss…we’ve fully equipped 60 people, and we’ve got 29 people with 2 pieces of armor. It should only take us another 3 hours”
Everyone sighs in both relief and fatigue. It’s only 3 hours…but also its 3 hours to go.
“So Joat, what have you been doing these past couple of hours?” The indigo fish-beastlady asks curiously...
At least these ‘Fish sisters’ look slightly different, unlike another scaly bunch…There’s an indigo, red, pink and purple. And they look decently pretty?
I mean, women who have scaled skin are decently limited in their beauty
Anyways, I should respond to her question
…
..
.
But how do I respond to that without damaging my reputation?
“Boss is refining woman’s underwear” Squirrel says with a grin
*TWITCH*
Squirrel…god dammit!
“I see” Baila says that with so much killing intent…I’m truly terrified.
Though, oddly enough, most people look quite happy(?) about the fact that I’m doing that.
The guys have a grin on their faces…except for Bottom and Reddwarf…must have been traumatized.
The girls also have grins on their faces…but a lot more innocent…I think?
“Oh that’s perfect, I was getting to hate this granny pants anyway” The pink fish-sister looks like she’s looking forward for some better underwear.
These past 5 hours have been quite difficult for me…because girls are so demanding when it comes to their underwear!
I did have to concede and say no to some of their ideas, because no way am I going to make proper lingerie with just leather.
But thankfully a decent amount of them wanted g-strings or just panties and even more thankfully(?) I’ve not had to witness them walking out in their underwear…
Their bras just have less material now and that was easy to do. I firmly stated I couldn’t do any padded or push-ups…because I personally feel a bit let down when I find that C cup was only just a B…
Clothes are a man’s bane sometimes…
Anyways, the underwear took a surprisingly long time and I’ve only gotten around 20 pieces done in these 5 hours…mostly because they did not back down in having me do inscriptions on the underwear, like pictures and whatnot…Seriously they’re way too picky for their underwear.
So I’ve only got another 10 or so girls to do…but one of them is Baila…So that’s going to go real well…not.
Also, I haven’t seen BC or Charmine yet…so I’m fearing that too.
And I can’t forget that I’ve got PJ and PinkyS to do too…
Oh god, these next 3 hours will be horrible.
Though I won’t be able to do PJ or PinkyS till much later…so I’ve got time to prepare for them at least…
It’s quite close to morning right now; around 4 hours to go.
Ok, enough of a break, I want to finish this off before morning
Everyone who doesn’t have a full set of armor, come to the square. Others who have a full set of armor…come anyways because I need you guys for something.
“Time to get back to work everyone”
*Groans*
“Just think of the weapons we’ll get…I’m personally looking forward to my daggers”
Thank you Squirrel for the small rally
Everyone gazes wistfully at the moon, probably thinking about their own weapons…
…
“LISTEN UP”
The entire square goes silent.
Ah, commanding shout is beautiful…
“Those without a full set of armor, raise your hands”
I quickly count 29.
“You lot stay here; take turns tanning and having armor built for yourselves”
They all nod
“My division, I’d like you to stay behind so that I can talk groupings and whatnot with you”
“My division will be doing the same, by the village gate” DillyDally states. Sneaky guy came up her with Braxel. Good point…Braxel is the top dog for the raid group.
“We will raid at dawn” Braxel is not a man of many words…
“YES” The crowd seems happy to actually be going on a raid soon.
Out of the 60, almost all of them leave for the village gate…Well whoops, we accidentally did their entire group first…well whatever.
Left in the square is 45, well 46 if you count me, people.
Nice, only those 4 people are missing right now.
“Ok, I am division leader Joat, if you still didn’t know who I was”
“It’s hard to not know the guy with badass armor and shorts” Zzoid grins from the crowd
*Twitch*
Look, the shorts are cool too…
“Thanks. I’ll now introduce you to my right and left advisors for this raid. Zzoid and Tikari come on up”
The two of them walk up nonchalantly…what, no sauntering?
I point to the two of them and then give them each a wolf head for a helmet. I made some in the small amount of freetime I had.
Everyone nods at my choice of Squirrel but most frown at the unknown Zzoid.
“Party’s won’t matter so don’t bother trying to make them, they don’t have any effect right now so no point limiting our groups with them” Zzoid says some clever things…which most people think and nod at it. He’s secured his positions well.
“Now I’d like everyone who has an attack of 50 to stay standing, the rest sit down”
Thrash, BC, Zzard and the minion trio stay standing up, along with an Orange tiger-beastman and a White tiger-beastman.
Hmm, that’s 8…
“Anybody with an attack over 40, stand up”
A kobold with a wispy white beard stands up and is accompanied by a female gnoll…the only reason I know that is because she’s got quite a bust, and her face is decently feminine…which is a bit strange because it’s the face of a hyena…
Brilliant, so that’s 10…a good number
“Ok, Thrash, the wolf with a wolf head, will be your team leader. You guys are the Attack team”
“Why is that punk got to be our boss? Why aren’t we any better? Favouritism?” Reddwarf isn’t happy, but he is a gnome so I’m quite impressed he’s got over 50 attack…so I reckon he feels he’s deserving of team leader
“No you’re not! Thrash, state your level and you attack” I give an innocent smile to the crowd
“Level 5, 101 attack”
…
..
.
Holy mother of Aiag…I thought it was only 81? He must’ve leveled when we were out gathering flowers and he leveled with the leatherworking too…and put all his points in brutality it seems…
Everyone else looks as shocked as me.
That’s not a 1 hit kill for some of us…but still…that’s a 3 digit damage number at level 5…In a normal game I’d be calling hacks upon just hearing that.
“You think he’s strong enough to lead now?”
“That will do” Reddwarf concedes pretty nicely…that’s kind of him.
The rest of the group nods and gives Thrash a pat on his back…he looks chuffed and also gives me a knowing wink…but he doesn’t know anything or he thinks he does and he’s completely wrong...He totally took it the wrong way…
“Ok, so you guys, start tanning leather while I deal with the rest”
They head off to do that
“The rest of you…whoever has more than 200hp stand up”
…
..
.
No one, great!
“Hmm, who would like to play tank?”
Well having a tank would be obvious and since it’s a raid we need multiple.
…
..
.
Guess no one likes getting hit…well that was obvious.
I look at Squirrel and Zzoid…this is why you’re here guys!
“Whoever tanks gets a free hide shield and you’ll get more rests within the raid” Zzoid says to the crowd
“I’LL DO IT” Quite a few people shout and stand up at the mention of either rest or a shield...well probably because of the rest, but I like to think that somebody wants the shield.
“Good to see so many people are so willing” I let the sarcasm drip
A couple look a bit ashamed but for the sake of rest they continue to stand up.
I pick the bigger looking people; The Fish Sisters, a fat Hippopotamus-beastman, a black panther-beastman, a black panther-beastlady, a yellow leopard-beastman, A bulldog-beastman and a wild looking elf with unkempt long grey hair.
10 people will work as a first line of defense.
I direct the cat family and the hippo together while I put the elf and the fish sisters together…I swear I can see him mouthing thanks to me?
“So that’s our 2 Shield team. Each will have a team leader chosen by the teams themselves”
The nod at that and after quick deliberation and a small intergroup chat, The Hippo and the Elf are chosen as leaders…simply because they’re different probably?
Also the ‘cat’ people don’t look like they talk much and the Elf volunteered much to the Sister’s delight.
“Ok, you lot go help the tanning, and team leaders, ask Thrash to make you a wolf head for your shoulder as a symbol of your status”
They nod and walk off, about 5 metres…
“So the rest of you…there’s 23 you left. I’d like 10 of you to become backup shield teams and 10 of you to be the Skirmish team. The remaining 3 will be a support squad, which isn’t an easy job”
I give them a minute to mull over their options
“Those who want to be in the backup shield teams…stand up”
Good, more of a response this time.
A total of 12 people stand up and I choose: A red turtle, a white and a blue deer-beastladies, a young beardless dwarf, a baby elephant beast-man (which is still as big as me) and 5 redhead Goat-beastmen with horns and cloven hooves…
Wow…that’s some satyr wannabe’s right here.
However, although they’re the same colour, they’re visibly decently different; each has a scar somewhere different on their faces. So I’ll call them, Righty, Lefty, Mouthy, Nosy and Chinny. That’ll separate them just fine.
Splitting them up into 2 Shield teams (the wannabe satyrs on one and the others on another), they each choose a team leader.
Chinny and the Dwarf are team leaders.
“Ok, you guys head off and get your equipment sorted. Next up is Skirmish team”
Almost everyone stands up.
“I’m only choosing 7 for here, because I know 3 who are definitely part of the Skirmish group, but won’t be on till dawn. So that will mean we’ll have 6 people on the support squad”
Some grumble but they don’t say anything…I’m guessing they trust my judgement somewhat.
The ones I chose were: Baila, the Canary-beastman and the tiger-beastman from before and a bunch of bird-beastmen/beastlady’s
I’m really bad at birds so…there’s a magpie? There’s a robin? Also there’s a bald bird-beastman with a white beard and brown feathered hands…Oh…a bald eagle?
The last one, I have no idea what kind of bird it is; it’s blue…and its fat…bluebird? Is that a thing?
“Ok, so bird-beastmen/lady’s together and Krudel, which is the skeleton, will be team leader for the second skirmish team
“What about me?” both the tiger-beastman and Baila look a bit miffed as they say that
“Have some faith in me will you”
“…fine…Joat” Ok Baila, I’m going to ignore the hateful intent you are giving me as best as I can
The tiger-beastman huffs, but concedes as well.
“Ok, you guys, get the rest of your armor”
They head off to the rest of the teams
“Now the rest of you, will be my support team”
“Erm…what do we do; support?” A beaver-beastlady says looking a bit lost
“You’ll have 3 roles; the first being that you’ll be replacements for any deaths that happen within the raid group”
They nod at that, good.
“The second role is that you have to maintain a balanced communication with either Zzoid or
Tikari”
They raise their eyebrows at that, along with most of the group over there working
“What do you mean by that brother?” Zzand asks confused
“Each of you will act as messengers for each team; Zzoid will be in charge of the Shield teams while Tikari will be in touch with the Attack and Skirmish teams”
“Hmm, that would work well, keeping orders concise and easily transmitted” The old crow-beastman muses with a wrinkled and clawed hand.
Everyone thinks the idea over for a few seconds before I hear multiple dings on either side of me. Hah, smart people, sending their friend requests.
The support team also gives friend requests to eachother.
“So what is the third thing?” A brown monkey-beastlady speaks up
“You will be an independent unit, who will help at their own accord when necessary…I trust you have the right mind to make such decisions”
“Hmm, so working as replacements but also as a separate unit, so that means we can make decisions without having to ask the boss” Ravena speaks to herself, earning her quite a few dodgy stares.
But everyone nods at her thought…because this will allow for quicker action with some tactics.
Yes that is a third reason...but the real reason was because I really don't want to try learn a good 50 names...I only need to learn 7 now
“Ok, so with that sorted, let’s get to work”
“YES BOSS”
…
…
(Anoobis’ POV)
“LOOK! LOOK ALL OF YOU AT THE GENIUS THAT IS ME! BOW DOWN AT MY GREATNESS MY INGENIOUSITY AND MY GENEROSITY IN SHARING THIS DIVINE KNOWLEDGE WITH YOU”
...
..
.
“You are…genius” The big red Minotaur says amazed
“Yes, yes I am"
…
…
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Thank you for the mass of ratings...I'm extremely happy :D....although I did get a guy who didn't like my characters...but can't please everyone.
Also Anubbisk...I thank you verrrrrry much for the detailed rating and i would love for you to give me a 6/5 for my characters :P
-TRUE NORRRRRRD
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[quote='TrueNORD' pid='337790' dateline='1442272399']